High Flight

Magee’s body of literary work is small due to his short life span. Only four of his poems—“Sonnet to Rupert Brooke” (1938), “Brave New World” (1939), “High Flight” (1941), and “Per Ardua” (1941)—are widely available, with “High Flight” considered the most publicly significant and aesthetically memorable. According to Roger Cole, who worked extensively with Magee’s family on his biography, Magee’s headmaster at Rugby School, Hugh Lyon, directed him toward emulating poet Rupert Brooke, whose work had been in vogue during the Edwardian period (Cole, Roger. High Flight. Fighting High Publishing, 2013). Magee took artistic inspiration from Brooke, admiring his World War I poems.

Magee also drew from the work of Romantic poets, particularly imitating their emphasis on nature and contemplations of the sublime. Both Brooke and the Romantics worked widely in the sonnet form. From all accounts, Magee was thrilled to have won the Rugby School prize for “Brave New World” in 1939, especially since Brooke had won the same prize at the school 34 years before. In “High Flight,” Magee’s youthful enthusiasm and sense of special purpose in serving echo Brooke’s sentiments as a soldier early in World War I.

The lasting impact of “High Flight” has provided inspiration for poems about war and those about flight, aviation, and heavenly ascension since its publication.